Tech

The saga of the Coolest cooler: How a Kickstarter campaign goes south

The Coolest cooler, a souped-up cooler complete wth a cutting board, blender, Bluetooth speaker and USB charger, started out as Kickstarter's own Cinderella story. When creator Ryan Grepper first launched his "portable party disguised as a cooler" in 2013, it failed miserably.

He went back to the drawing board and returned in 2014 with a lower funding goal and a better product, which went on to raise more than $13 million and break Kickstarter's funding record. The Coolest Cooler's price tag of $165-$185 was too good to pass up.

Coolest was hailed as the King of Kickstarter, a poster child for the idea that any product can materialize as long as enough people think it's cool. But the nature of investing isn't as concrete as people want it to be, and throwing money at an idea doesn't automatically make it show up on your doorstep a few months later.

Almost two years after Coolest launched on Kickstarter, about one third of backers have received their coolers — around 20,000 people — leaving about 36,000 people without the product they were promised.

The slow spiral

In August of 2015, over a year after the campaign launched, the team behind Coolest Cooler answered angry backers by promising to ship all of the coolers by November that year, explaining that shipping a cooler is more difficult than mailing a letter.

By the time November rolled around, Coolest started posting updates behind the "For backers only" wall of privacy, including one titled "Factory strike update." Reasons for delays were mounting, and updates continued to periodically appear for backers only.

A since-deleted YouTube video featuring Grepper explained that Coolest was now being sold on Amazon to "keep the lights on," according to The Verge.The current asking price for Coolest on Amazon is $400, over $200 more than people invested on Kickstarter.

The promised November deadline came and went.

An update titled "The Path Forward" appeared on April 12 to backers, which according to Motherboardexplained that if they wanted to get their Coolest in the next three months, they'd have to shell out an extra $97.

The asking price wasn't enough, clearly, and Grepper said in the update that backers who don't want to pay the extra $97 will need to wait until profits from Amazon cover their shipping. At this time, that deadline is indefinite.

Image: Coolest/kickstarter

Pitchforks and torches

Not everyone was pleased with this news, of course. One angry backer doxxed members of the company, opening them up to harassment and threats, according to Motherboard.

"Yesterday some backer threatened Ryan's family"

"I got doxxed by a backer and my phone has been blowing up," Coolest marketing director Susan Towers told Motherboard. "I do think some of the reaction is beyond the pale. We've been physically threatened and abused and yesterday some backer threatened Ryan's family.”

Commenters on Coolest's Kickstarter page called for refunds, calling Grepper a fraud, a snake oil salesman and a loser.

Image: kickstarter

The saga of Coolest caused some backers to lose their faith in Kickstarter and crowdfunding in general. They cited bad money management and lack of planning, placing the blame of the Coolest's failure on the shoulders of a man whose success was bigger than his expertise could manage.

Image: kickstarter

Some called for a class action lawsuit against the creators of Coolest. One backer, who put out their email address to garner interest in a lawsuit, told Mashable in an email that "well over 6,000 people have expressed interest and support of a class action."

Image: kickstarter

Kickstarter is a gamble, not a guarantee

The anger of Coolest backers stems from two major sources: the creator's broken promises, and his request for more funds. But that's the reality of investing.

"Kickstarter is not a store," Kickstarter spokesperson Justin Kazmark told Mashable. "There is a learning curve where people are trying to figure out what this new [crowdfunding] experience is. ... If you're new to it and you've never done it before, you may think 'this is like Amazon.'"

But when you back a project on Kickstarter, you aren't buying a product; you're investing in a product and helping someone complete a goal. Just because a campaign hits its financial goal doesn't mean the project will be successful.

Just because a campaign hits its financial goal doesn't mean the project will be successful.

"Every creator has to fill out a risks and challenges section," Kazmark said. "We're very up front about this. The risk exists."

For Coolest, the creators imagined that those risks would involve slow manufacturing and other speed bumps delaying fulfillment.

"To minimize the possibility of manufacturing setbacks we will enter the manufacturing stage with at least one back-up supplier for each component pre-located and my product commercialization experts will help ensure smooth sailing from our suppliers and factories," the project states.

There's no mention of money challenges.

According to an independent study of Kickstarter projects by the University of Pennsylvania, 9% of successfully funded projects fail to deliver.

Mega Man-creator Keiji Inafune got funding for the game Mighty No. 9 through Kickstarter, but the project was pushed back multiple times until it hit its current indefinite delay. Lovecraftian board game The Doom That Came To Atlantic City! was generously funded on Kickstarter, but the project was canceled because of the creators' inexperience with the market.

Even projects that get full funding and deliver products in a mostly timely manner can be considered a failure if the quality of the product is greatly diminished from what was advertised.

The Ouya is an Android-based gaming console that was Kickstarted in 2012, promising an inexpensive gaming platform that made it easier for developers to get games on the market. Take one look at the nearly 30,000 comments, and you'll see that the final product was cheap, sometimes damaged and not at all what backers expected when they put their investment down.

Grepper had a cool idea, and received the money he thought he needed to make the Coolest Cooler come to life. But that doesn't mean he had the business knowledge and foresight to know how to fulfill the delivery promises he made to investors.

"Sometimes creators can be overoptimistic about their estimated deliveries," Kazmark said. "Backers should go into this with the expectation that this is an estimate, there will be delays from time to time."

When perusing projects on Kickstarter or Indiegogo, remember that offering to pay up front for a product that doesn't exist yet may not pan out the way you hope. Delays can stretch out deliveries for years, designs may change, or the whole thing might just come crashing down.

Grepper's project hasn't failed, but it hasn't wrapped up as neatly as backers had hoped. Perhaps that lesson alone is worth the price.

Mashable
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